The Body Politic is a six-piece Progressive Metal powerhouse from Nanaimo, British Columbia that isn’t afraid to drag their skills through familiar realms of Groove Metal and Metalcore. Taking their name from a short story by the legendary Clive Barker and starting out as a Jazz ensemble, the focus quickly shifted to what we have today, leading to the unleashing of their debut full-length effort All Too Human in 2011. What followed was a number of Canadian tours opening for bands like Tesseract, Protest the Hero, and Scale the Summit, all the while honing their emotionally charged music to what would become the follow-up EP Egressor in 2014. But is this just over twenty minute effort worth experiencing, or is it more of a hot jumbled cliche?

“Vitam Agere” starts off as a soft introductory piece with a simple keyboard performance against the sound of a record spinning. About a minute in, you get that passage in keyboard form against a deeper, crushing groove that varies in submersible atmospheres that show a bit of a depressive mood to what sounds like a stylish Progressive Metal offering with traces of Metalcore hooks thrown in for good measure. If you haven’t heard All Too Human, you wouldn’t quite know what to expect until “Armature” kicks in, continuing the established notes the piano used with a highly technical Scale the Summit exploratory presence in the riffs that can get a bit dark at times, such as around the minute-and-a-half mark and the breakdown roughly ninety seconds after. The chorus, however, has a very enthusiastic clean singing approach that brings in a bit of a mainstream Punk Rock or even Emo quality that does conflict with the hooks slung at the listener, which only continues to irritate as the recording goes on.

“All Hands” does change things up, using the keyboards to introduce a bit of a seventies Science Fiction atmosphere to some passages, such as the introduction, wedged in between your standard catchy Metalcore riffs and crushing breakdowns, turning that aforementioned imaginative environment to that of a score common to an old Nintendo Entertainment System title. The joyous performance gives out half way through to a far more desolate and isolated astral tone that would perfectly fit a rough anime, crashing in with another technical Groove Metal passage to lift your spirits once more. This does kind of become the norm as you progress, though the Metalcore elements can often be a bit diluted in comparison, though the nasal singing continues to grow. “Swing for the Fences” plays out like sudden jumps from joy to madness, especially after the twisted breakdown with an audio clip of a couple fighting and things being thrown about included. “Colqhoun” starts off aggressive but moves to upbeat material that seems to shift between both worlds like sudden and brief temper tantrums before the closing track “Irradiate” kicks in. Sadly this just ends up the most whiny performance of them all, getting to the point where it feels like you ingested so much sugar you could easily diagnose yourself with a form of diabetes intolerant to prescription drugs.

Egressor starts off with so much promise of being an EP that can walk between joy and gloominess, only to forsake much of the artistic elements incorporated into the Progressive Metal foundation for singing that sounds so immature and whiny compared to it. Even the enthusiasm that Egressor starts off with is quickly lost by “Swing for the Fences” as it becomes just another chunk of technical Progressive Metalcore fodder that seems geared only to brag about the band’s skills to handle complex performances and grooves while making the girls in the audience swoon with puddles in their panties. Two, three spins max and you’ll find yourself ready to move on to the next talented Progressive Metal outfit that is willing to actually not turn their back on the potential they put on display for the sake of marginally radio friendly material designed to get them signed and recognized immediately in a world that is desperately calling out for bands with a little more depth than this.

Digital review copy of this release provided by The Body Politic via Asher Media Relations.